The Media Research Center's War on Liberal Comedy

Does anyone else remember The 1/2 Hour News Hour, Fox News' short-lived "comedy" show that was billed as the conservative answer to The Daily Show? There are plenty of dismal reviews and embarrassing clips out there—more than enough to justify putting "comedy" in scare quotes—so I won't pile on. I only bring it up because The 1/2 Hour News Hour may be dead, but its spirit lives on.

I'm referring to NewsBusted,^[1] a video series produced by the Media Research Center—the same organization responsible for NewsBusters (obviously). Here's a sampling from a recent episode. Highlight the white text to reveal the punchlines, which I've hidden to avoid ruining the surprise. (Disclaimer: You will not be surprised.)

This year Tax Day falls on Tuesday, April 17. Tax Day, or as the half of Americans who pay no federal income tax call it…Obama Christmas.

Democratic advisor Hilary Rosen is under fire for saying Ann Romney, quote, "never worked a day in her life." Hey, if she really never worked a day in her life, Ann Romney would be…endorsing Obama.

Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen was suspended for five games after saying that he loves Fidel Castro. But not to worry, Guillen has just been offered a job in…the Obama administration.

And that's pretty much all it is, ad infinitum. Sometimes they have to take a convoluted route to get there, but invariably the punchline is little more than a lazy reference to some negative stereotype about liberals.^[2] The jokes are even less sophisticated than "Why did the chicken cross the road? (To get to the other side)," which at least has the decency to not deliver a punchline at all.

But that's just one front in the MRC's War on Liberal Comedy. While NewsBusted is fighting fire with (attempted) fire, MRC president Brent Bozell is fighting fire with self-righteous anger over fire's stubborn insistence on continuing to exist.

Bozell's columns and blog posts for NewsBusters serve as a handy guide to what you should be outraged about if you lack both perspective and a sense of humor. In January, it was "ABC smutcom 'Modern Family'". Then it was "the bohemian elite at NBC" for failing to protect America from seeing an upraised middle finger during the Super Bowl. Then back to ABC, because somebody told Bozell what GCB stands for.^[3]

And then, last week, this:

Come on, Jon. We dare you to prove you are an equal opportunity bigot. Your grotesque stunt displaying a Nativity scene in a vulgar manner to take a jab at Fox News is but the latest in a long line of unacceptable behavior and hypocrisy when it comes to the media’s treatment of traditional Christianity. Doing something similar with the Koran or the Torah is equally offensive. Since you’re so brave to offend Christians, are you equally brave to offend Muslims and Jews? We dare you.

Stewart thought he was being cute when he displayed a manger scene in front of a woman’s genitals to mock those allegedly ignoring the 'war on women.' If he’s such a daring political comedian, he should demonstrate his boldness by performing the same routine, but this time with a Koran and the Torah.

Otherwise he is not only a bigot but also an outright coward.

The amount of silliness on display here is almost overwhelming, so I'm just going to gloss over the question of which part of Jon Stewart's point—that everything has to be a "War" now, and it's getting out of hand, which is rather similar to a point I've made recently—Bozell failed to get. (I have the choices narrowed down to "every part" and "almost every part".)

That still leaves the fact that this is the president of an organization that dedicates its existence to the flagrantly partisan mission of "exposing and combating liberal media bias", and he sees fit to insist on non-partisan joke-telling—all while another division of the same organization produces (attempted) comedy that's substantially more partisan than anything I've ever seen on The Daily Show. It's too bad Bozell doesn't have the slightest ability to appreciate irony, because this is a good one.

1. According to the MRC:

NewsBusted™ is a weekly two-minute MRCTV comedy production that conservatives love and liberals love to hate. Featuring the comedic stylings of Jodi Miller, it is loaded with her irreverent, sarcastic wit and one-liners poking fun at the loony left.

I would take issue with virtually every part of that, up to and including the "weekly" part, as new episodes are actually posted twice a week.

2. Better over-analyzers of comedy than I have attempted to explain why conservatives have so much trouble being funny, but, for what it's worth, I think it's some combination of the following:
– The creators of NewsBusted (and The 1/2 Hour News Hour) are simply not very talented. And it's not helping things that the tendency (often fueled by conservatives themselves) is to look to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report as the standards for "liberal comedy"—I can certainly think of other shows that are a good deal hackier and a good deal more single-mindedly liberal. (Not that NewsBusted compares favorably to Real Time With Bill Maher either, but that's a bar that's a little easier to clear.)
– The best political comedy shows, like The Daily Show and Colbert, put comedy first, and if the collective backgrounds and political leanings of the people involved cause that comedy to have a liberal slant, then so be it. The 1/2 Hour News Hour and NewsBusted put politics first, aiming to be the conservative counterpoint to the liberal version of themselves, which is not something that exists.
– Comedy is fueled by misfortune, and conservatives, almost by definition, have little to complain about. They can make jokes at the expense of those who do have things to complain about, but when your ideology involves telling those same people to stop complaining and learn some responsibility and get a damn job, the jokes tend to come off as more mean-spirited than funny.

3. Of course, he either doesn't realize or doesn't care that neither the "G" nor the "C" are meant to be taken literally:

Time TV critic James Poniewozik protested “I have a hard time believing that anyone will see themselves insulted by GCB: its target is not Christians but phonies.” Not so. There are certainly Christian hypocrites that can make for great grist in entertainment. But this show offers the viewing public no authentic Christians at all.

What else is there to say? Bozell's rebuttal to Poniewozik's point is a restatement of the point he's rebutting. We're through the looking glass.

The NewsBusters Trilogy, Part Three: Restoring Sanity

In Part One I talked about, I don't know…something. Wolf Blitzer, perhaps? It was a while ago. I remember Part Two, though. I discussed the complex relationship between NewsBusters—the tireless exposer of liberal bias in the media—and Jon Stewart. But that's in the past, and it's time to look toward the future. Specifically, this Saturday, when tens of thousands will converge on The National Mall for Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity. If these excerpts from the website are any indication, it's definitely an event I can get behind:

We’re looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard.

Ours is a rally for the people who’ve been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs).

Think of our event as Woodstock, but with the nudity and drugs replaced by respectful disagreement.

Man, respectful disagreement. I mean, I'm all for nudity and drugs too, but America sure could use a few boatloads of respectful disagreement right about now. Everything else sounds good, too.^[1] No reference to any candidates or parties, and no suggestion that the rally is targeted at a particular ideology. Basically, it's not about what we're saying; it's about how we're saying it.

Even the charity is great: the Trust for The National Mall. Because this is a gathering of people who are responsible enough to do what the government, the unions, the banks, and the oil companies haven't done in a long time—spend their own money to clean up their own mess.

In short, it's an event no reasonable person could have a problem with. This, of course, is the point where we SMASH CUT to unreasonable people lodging unreasonable complaints (at unreasonable volumes).^[2]

The liberal media just can't stand all the attention Glenn Beck got for his "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington, D.C., last month.

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Obviously their real goal is to mock the hundreds of thousands of everyday people who gathered last month to worship God and love their country. What better way to make average Americans who dare to oppose socialism feel like freaks than with big rallies called "Keep Fear Alive" and "The Million Moderate March" (I guess Stewart won't be attending that one).

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While it seems like so many of Jon Stewart's adoring fans in the media are elated to see a counter-Tea Party, not many have been willing to call this event what it is—an event to belittle people who are exercising their rights as citizens to protest their government.

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If Arianna Huffington, an admitted "progressive," announces she's offering transportation to individuals that desire to participate in Comedy Central hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's "million moderate march," can it really be described as "moderate?"

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Obama's endorsement clearly demonstrates a decidedly liberal slant to the event.

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In case Arianna Huffington plotting to spend an estimated quarter-million dollars on buses to the liberal Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally didn’t paint it as an Obama event, how about Oprah Winfrey? The Obama-endorsing, Obama-campaign-stumping Winfrey appeared via satellite on Thursday night’s episode of The Daily Show to announce that she was going to fly Stewart’s audience to Washington, D.C.

If it's not obvious, all this paranoia is based on absolutely nothing, except maybe the revelation that two of the organizers used to work for Clinton, along with a mountain of deep-seated preconceptions. And I'm focusing on NewsBusters because otherwise this trilogy would be, well, unfocused, but—in terms of both content and tone—they're hardly an outlier.

And, to be clear, I have no doubt the attendees and signs and costumes will be disproportionately liberal,^[3] because conservatives just don't seem all that interested in going. And I'm sure a lot of ralliers will, in fact, expect the whole thing to be about bashing Fox News and the tea partiers, because people are staggeringly good at missing the point. And I'm sure a lot of things will be said that are aimed at Fox News and the tea partiers, because they're definitely responsible for some—not all, but some—of the idiocy that inspired the rally in the first place.

And, of course, when those things happen, NewsBusters will report that the rally was exactly what they expected it to be.^[4] But I'm getting ahead of myself (not to mention starting a few too many sentences with conjunctions in a row), which means it's probably time to wrap up this three-part mess.

To recap, this, as far as I can tell, is the current situation:

— Jon Stewart is holding a rally with the stated goal of restoring reasonableness and sanity, and Stephen Colbert is holding a rally to mock the divisive, hyperbolic fear-mongering that has seemingly taken over.

— Everything Stewart has said—on his show, in interviews, and through promotional materials—has been ideologically-neutral, with frequent re-affirmations that the only characteristic attendees are expected to share is a willingness to have a reasonable conversation about politics.

— Prominent conservative voices in the media—exemplified here by Newsbusters—have, on numerous occasions, and in no uncertain terms, insisted that the true goal of these rallies is to promote liberalism and debase conservatism.

— The only evidence—and I use that term loosely—supporting this is that many of the organizers and supporters are liberals.

— In other words, many conservatives,^[5] based solely on an intense distrust of their ideological opponents, have convinced themselves of the existence of a vast, intricate, anti-conservative conspiracy.

— That's insane.

And there it is—the trajic irony of the plea for sanity: If you're listening, and if the message makes sense to you, then you're probably not the intended audience.

1. Ok, one thing. I cringed a little when Stewart called it a "million moderate march." Moderates, in my unfairly-generalized opinion, are people who don't pay close attention to politics, but are inexplicably committed to preserving the two-party system. ("My primary sources of information are the candidates' dueling attack ads, and I only understand a few of the issues with any real depth, and there's a decent chance my decision will ultimately be based on something ridiculous, like which candidate's name sounds more like it matches my skin color, but vote for a third party? That's crazy! I can't just throw my vote away!")
2. A trick I learned from The Daily Show, by the way.
3. How can halloween costumes have a liberal bias? Tune in to Fox News at 5 p.m. and/or 9 p.m. on November 1st to find out.
4. Specifically: (a) the speakers were predominately liberal, (b) Stewart made a few token attempts to appear non-partisan, but most of his rhetoric was aimed squarely at conservatives, (c) the crowd was unruly and disrespectful, and perhaps even hostile toward the few conservatives in attendance, and (d) attendance was less than expected. Maybe it'll be true; maybe not. Regardless, they'll find a reason to say it.
5. No, not you. The other ones. You know who I'm talking about.

The NewsBusters Trilogy, Part Two: An Exercise in Futility

In Part One I discussed NewsBusters, and their relentless commitment to exposing liberal bias in the media. Turns out it's pretty easy, especially when you pick on professional hyperbole-spewers like Keith Olbermann, or disgraced politicians like Eliot Spitzer, or embarrassing loudmouths like Rosie O'Donnell. But NewsBusters wouldn't be where they are today if they were content to go after the easy targets. Their mission is to expose every square inch of liberal bias, even if it comes from the one media personality who still clings to archaic standards of journalistic integrity and intellectual honesty.

I'm referring, of course, to Jon Stewart.^[1]

Now, close your eyes for a second and try to visualize politics as a one-dimensional line with a horizontal (i.e. left to right) orientation—a spectrum, if you will. And suppose that every person occupies a point somewhere on that line, as determined by their individual ideologies. (I know, I know—belief systems are way too complex and nuanced for such a simplistic model to have any real meaning, but bear with me.) At the left end of this spectrum is, say, Karl Marx, and at the right end is, I don't know…Sarah Palin.^[2] Based on those parameters, it's probably a safe bet that Stewart would occupy a point somewhere left of the center.

Thing is, I don't think it matters, because virtually everything he says and does on The Daily Show is ideologically-neutral. He doesn't use the show to advocate tax increases, or health care reform, or gay rights, or [insert the thing you're most concerned about the liberal media shoving down the throats of Real Americans]. He uses it to promote accountability (in government, corporations, and the media), rational conversation, and understanding of different points of view.

But still, he's a liberal. Therefore, as far as the brilliant thinkers at NewsBusters are concerned, he's undoubtedly engaged in a narrow-minded campaign to further his nefarious agenda. And don't think they can't produce some evidence!

In Stewart's castigation of this error, he made it seem as if Hannity was personally responsible for it even though it's much more than likely that the clips were added from the September 12 rally without Hannity's knowledge…[W]hat Stewart did on Tuesday was far from either comedy or media analysis, but instead a clear extension of his own anti-Fox agenda.

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[W]hen Stewart turned to actual data instead of humor, was he innocent of manipulating the polls? A quick look proves Stewart and his researchers mangled the poll numbers he used on screen…If the best argument liberals like Stewart can make is that perhaps Democrats should pass a health care bill that a "plurality" supports after pushed around by pollsters, then the desperate spinners are not the Fox News personnel.

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Liberal comedian Jon Stewart featured a rare conservative voice on Tuesday's Daily Show, former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen. As he often does during the occasions he talks to right-leaning guests, Stewart turned combative, attacking Thiessen for "living in a selective world."

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Comedian Jon Stewart on Wednesday bashed Fox News for parent company News Corporation's $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association. Unfortunately, Stewart failed to inform his viewers that Viacom, the parent company of Comedy Central, has so far given disproportionately to Democrats this year. Also missing in the "Daily Show" host's attack of FNC and Glenn Beck was that News Corp. prior to this contribution had historically given more to Democrats than Republicans.^[3]

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Actually, many people believe [Stewart is a legitimate source of news] including folks inside the news industry, which of course is pathetic. Also pitiful is that people like Stewart and his ilk routinely talk about Fox being extreme as they typically give MSNBC a pass despite it being much further to the left than FNC is to the right.

Maybe they're on to something, maybe not. If you watch someone closely enough, of course you'll spot a few examples of the type of bias you're specifically trying to find. But the sheer breadth of NewsBusters' coverage of the Evil Liberal Plot to Take Over the Government or Destroy America or Whatever creates an interesting paradox: Any time a prominent liberal is criticized, it's taken as further evidence of that person's crippling liberalism, so NewsBusters reports it—even if the criticism came from a fellow liberal.^[4]

Here are a few such headlines from the last 18 months (along with a sampling of the language used in the articles to imply that these stories are weird aberrations from the norm):

Jon Stewart Cows Another Lefty - Did Matthews Change Book Title Over Stewart Mockery? ("unexpected")

Jon Stewart: Obama Handled Gates Racism Question 'Stupidly' ("quite surprisingly", "I kid you not")

Jon Stewart on ClimateGate: 'Poor Al Gore - Global Warming Debunked Via Internet You Invented' ("Somewhat surprisingly")

Jon Stewart Rips Obama's Surge Speech: Sounds Like Bush in 2007 ("surprisingly")

Jon Stewart Slams Rachel Maddow (!) for Politicizing US Response to Earthquake in Haiti ("There's hope for Jon Stewart yet.")

Stewart Blasts Olbermann for Brown Rants, Defends Michelle Malkin ("shocking", "surprisingly")

Jon Stewart Defends Republicans From Claims They Planted Alvin Greene ("mysteriously opposite to contentions by some liberal media members")

Stewart: Fox Snookered No One, Breitbart Most Honest Person In Sherrod Affair ("surprising")

Is anyone else reminded of Tom Hanks' "Mr. Short-Term Memory" character from Saturday Night Live? ("There's food in my mouth!") I mean, every damn time, it's "Whoa, that's an oddly reasonable thing for a liberal to say. Where'd that come from?"

But how can I prove once and for all that Jon Stewart's leftward slant is, if not imaginary, at least irrelevant to the larger message of his show? I can't (hence this article's title). I can think of, like, a dozen more angles I could go into, but it's simply not the sort of thing that can be proven. So I'll just make one last observation: About a month ago, a certain Republican from Delaware got herself all over the news for some pretty silly reasons. Practically everyone in the media—especially the liberals and the comedians (plenty of overlap in that Venn diagram)—weighed in:

David Letterman: Christine O’Donnell promised that if she’s elected to the Senate for Delaware, she’ll cast a spell on healthcare.

Jay Leno: I don't know a lot about Christine O'Donnell, but she has some interesting views. She has come out against masturbation. And you thought the war on drugs was unwinnable.

Jimmy Kimmel: The tea party supported a woman named Christine O’Donnell who, in the 1990s, mounted a campaign to stop kids from masturbating. It didn’t work.

SNL's Kristen Wiig (as O'Donnell): Hi. I'm Christine O'Donnell, and I'm not a witch. I'm nothing like you've heard. I'm you. And just like you, I have to constantly deny that I'm a witch.

Keith Olbermann: Karl Rove [wigged out] over the lump of dumb and judgmental that is Christine O’Donnell.

Maureen Dowd: Evolution is no myth, but we may be evolving backward. Christine O’Donnell had better hope they don’t bring back witch burning.

Jon Stewart: Poor Christine O'Donnell.  Look, she said something on MTV 20 years ago. I am the last person to judge someone who said weird things on MTV 20 years ago…She may be qualified; she may not…But the last thing that I would suggest is that her witchcraft or masturbation stance is what we should be even thinking about or focusing on. And I think that's an enormous mistake that the Democrats will make.

Which of these quotes is not like the others? (Hint: It's a different color.)

Coming up: Part Three, in which NewsBusters discovers an alarming new threat to freedom and American values, and—guess what?—exposes it.

1. I'm also being facetious, but only a little.
2. Yeah, I used Palin because she's funny, but also—and I'm clearly not an expert here—it doesn't seem right to equate people like, say, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman with today's conservatives, because I don't think they'd be so adamant about legislating morality. Am I wrong about that? Who is the personification of the modern conservative ideology? Please tell me it's not really Sarah Palin.
3. This one is kind of funny. Stewart called out (skullf#@ked, if you prefer) News Corp. for donating $1 million to the Republicans. NewsBusters then claimed his motives were less than honorable, entering into evidence the following points: (1) He didn't say anything about Viacom giving more to Democrats, and (2) If you don't count the $1 million (under the little-known highest-and-lowest-get-thrown-out rule, I guess), News Corp. had also given more to Democrats. Fair enough—both of those things are true. Of course, Viacom had only given 110K to Democrats (67K to Republicans) which at least partially reflects the fact that there are simply more Democrats in office right now (and you can't buy political favors from politicians who aren't in office). And News Corp. had given 123K to Democrats (112K to Republicans), so that million shifted the ratio pretty drastically the other way, but shut up, there's liberal bias everywhere!
    Anyway, I went through all that in part because I also want to point out that I haven't looked into any of the other accusations of bias at all. I'm sure some of them aren't complete nonsense, but I wouldn't take them at face value either.
4. Because these people are dangerous, selfish ideologues who will stop at nothing to further their radical agendas (agendae?), and therefore cannot be trusted to provide unbiased, fact-based analysis…except when they criticize somebody else we don't like.